


it's not all gone (but you'll wish it was)

by tinysmallest



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, HATIM AU, because the entire concept of the bendy and buddy au wasn't horrifying enough man, bendy and buddy, bendy and buddy au, bendy and the ink machine hatim au, fuck you joey, henry's mentioned throughout but not by name because it hurts to use his name, joey's mentioned like once or twice so i guess he counts too?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 12:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: Thirty years after running away from his abusive caretaker, Bendy returns to Joey Drew Studios at the behest of the man who hurt him so badly, afraid at the vague threat Joey made towards his friends. Upon his arrival he finds the place utterly abandoned...Except for his dead best friend and a tiny, knock-off version of himself he finds shortly thereafter.Surely turning the Ink Machine back on will fix Boris but... the little knock-off? Apparently doesn't agree.





	it's not all gone (but you'll wish it was)

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO WELCOME TO ‘I HAD AN IDEA’ STARRING [upperstories's](http://upperstories.tumblr.com) BUDDY AND [thelostmoongazer's](http://thelostmoongazer.tumblr.com) HATIM BENDY TIME TO SEE WHO REALIZES WHAT’S GOING ON HERE EHEHEHEHEHE

This felt like a million mistakes. The biggest was leaving in the first place. Oh god, Bendy did not realize it was possible to feel this guilty. It was going to smother him out of existence.

But it was also why he had to make this right. @#$% Joey. He wasn’t sure what the man wanted from him, and this was probably not it, but he wasn’t leaving this place without attempting to fix his best buddy.

Finding him was... indescribable. With every footstep he heard that question again.

_“What do you want from me, Joey?”_

Why Boris? What did Boris ever do to Joey? Boris was the kindest, sweetest person he knew. He lacked the grown-up wisdom of... of him... but he made up for that with sheer, enthusiastic, endearing chutzpa.

Boris, Alice, him... sweet Lucifer Morningstar how he missed them. How he’d _mourned_ them, at times, sure he’d never see them again. And now thanks to Joey...

The more he thought about the ripped opened corpse strapped to a table the more he wanted to be sick. He had to bring Boris back. He had to.

The Machine was his one chance. _Boris’s_ one chance.

Assembling one’s own potential doom was not an easy task. With each item he collected he feared he was just writing on his own tombstone. Here Lies Bendamin D. Drew. Idiot Extraordinaire; Thought Interacting With Demonic Rituals Made By Joey Drew Was A Smart Idea.

But if this worked... if turning that thing on fixed his friend...

There was still no telling what would happen, exactly, but at least Boris would be alive. He deserved--was _owed_ \--that much.

If he weren’t also so irritated he might have been glad for the distraction from the all encompassing guilt and terror that were mixing in his gut like lead. As it stood, the little pipsqueak was really grinding his gears.

Or gear, as fate would have it.

“Kid, I need that.” He folded his arms across his chest, tapping his foot. The tiny look-alike, whose very existence sent his heart twisting with bitterness, held the gear aloft in probably the only exhibition of tooniness Bendy had seen from him so far. Likely because the gear was so big compared to him there was no other way to carry it.

He’d question how he held onto it with his ridiculous mitten-fingers, but whatever. Toon. Barely a toon, but a toon nonetheless.

Said barely-toon shook his head.

“I gotta turn it on. Did you just miss the- the _body_ in the other room or what!?” He gestured back in the general direction of that horrid room, feeling his forehead drip a little. “There’s a pipe connected right to him! I can fix him!”

Still, the runt shook his head.

“You’ve been following me around and yankin’ on my tail this whole time an’ trying to pull me away from stuff! Two hours! Two hours’a that! Haven’t you been annoying enough!?”

He shrank a little then, but gripped the gear tighter, face morose. Bendy stamped his foot.

“Gimmie the gear already! I got enough problems without this malarkey!”

Another shake of the head.

“I said gimmie!” He grabbed for it and the runt zipped around him, speeding off. Cursing up a storm, Bendy followed, which was in hindsight a bad idea if he wanted to catch the brat. Slidewhistles and airhorns were not exactly stealthy and signaled to his target where he was.

It wasn’t long before he was cornered, though. Bendy’s run slowed to a jog and then to a walk as he and the runt realized, at the same time, that he’d run into a dead end, trying to hide in the room Bendy had found the record in. The runt made staticky sounds of distress as he shoved himself and the gear as far under the desk as he could, arms out as if trying to protect the stupid thing.

“Oh c’mon,” Bendy huffed as he got down on his hands and knees, reached under the desk, and yanked the toon and the gear out, letting go of the runt’s arm and quickly hoisting the gear out of his reach. “Jeez, at literally _no point_ did you wanna make this whole thing even a _little_ easier, did ya? Take a hike if yer not gonna help me, brat; I got a best friend to save.”

He turned on his heel and returned to the ritual room, shuddering at the pillars. Yeesh…

… He’d need a stool to get up there, wouldn’t he? “I don’ know if I’ve said this enough but _wow,_ I _hate this!”_

Shoving the gear into hammerspace, he circled back to the hallway, stealing a chair from it. The runt came running out of the little radio room to pull his tail again, trying to pull him back even as Bendy pushed the chair onwards.

“Quit pullin’ my tail!” he shrieked as he got the chair in place, whipping around to snatch his tail out of the other toon’s hands. “Get lost already! Go- crawl down an inkwell or somethin’!”

The tiny, dripping thing stared (presumably, anyway; creepy little thing had NO VISIBLE EYES HOW WAS HE EVEN DOING ALL THIS) at him, eyebrows knitted together in fear or maybe sadness, but shoulders squared. Sort of. Pah. As if he could fight him!

“I don’ know what other ideas you have brewin’ but consider: _don’t,”_ he seethed as he climbed up the chair, pulling out the gear.

While the runt kicked up a fuss the entire time, there mercifully wasn’t much he could do. Bendy sat all the items on their pedestals, cringing each time they settled in place and their spotlight lit up.

He stared at The Illusion of Living clutched in his trembling fingers. Even if it wasn’t the original one--and he had no idea if it was or wasn’t, but he had a feeling Joey would never let the original out of his sight--the sight of it still made his stomach clench.

Slowly, he set it on the pedestal. The marble column depressed into the ground with a clicking sound, the spotlight snapping on above.

Okay. That was done. He quickly pulled the chair away as the runt made to try to scramble up it, pulling the chair far from the pedestals. Judging by the frustrated way he looked at the chair and then at the six places, moving the thing was beyond his capabilities.

 _There **is** a god,_ he grumbled to himself as he left the room. The runt wasn’t long in following, making desperate noises and tugging at his coat and tail. The hardest part of this hell over, Bendy grabbed his tail away and held it as he marched onwards. Fixing the ink pressure should be miles easier than gathering up the ritual items.

The runt ran on ahead when he snatched his tail away. He let out a sigh of relief. Maybe he was going to finally disappear.

Two minutes later, as he turned a corner and walked down a hallway, one of his cutouts peeked around the corner.

 _“YEEEEEAAAAA!”_ Bendy jumped back, half ready to bolt, arms up as if unsure whether he was going to try to shield his head or punch whatever jumped out at him.

Nothing.

Slowly, he eased from his tense position, then slapped a hand to his forehead. “Tha’s you, ain’t it?”

No answer. But he could hear little shuffling sounds.

“... That was you before too, wasn’t it? Wid the cutout. Cripes.” Dragging the hand down his face, he walked down the rest of the hallway, turning the corner and shoving the runt out of the way.

The projector clicked on.

By itself.

“HOLY MOTHER MARY-!” Bendy jumped back, clutching his chest. The runt jumped too.

One of Bendy’s animation reels began to play. Not an episode. Just a simple little moving image. Could barely qualify as a dance. He swallowed.

“Tha’ was one of the very first movin’ images of me produced,” he muttered, turning away from it, shaky arms coming up as if to fold across his chest. They settled in more of a self-hug position.

He’d shown it to him once, talked about how he spent ages on that, getting familiar with his design. His voice was so warm and…

No. No point in dwelling on that. He let go of himself with a heavy sigh and walked around to where the valve he remembered seeing earlier was.

Only to be reminded that it was was too high up. Throwing his arms into the air with a cry of frustration, he turned and grabbed the nearest chair, pulling it over and climbing it to turn the wheel. Screw this; he wanted out of this room!

He pushed the chair away afterwards and stalked back to the room that would make all of this better. Little taps behind him let him know the runt was still following, and he made sure to pick up his tail to avoid anymore blasted tugging.

Standing in front of the lever, he swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut as his fingers wrapped around it.

_Please. Just once. Just once, let things work out._

He pulled it just as the runt grabbed onto his arm and tried to yank. But Bendy was stronger, and the lever wasn’t rusted in place. It moved easily, tugged into place with a sharp click.

The room’s lights faded, dimming into darkness. Bendy’s heart rate kicked up, the devil standing there frozen for a good minute, still clutching the lever. The little doppelganger was already trying to shove the lever back up, but no dice. It didn’t budge.

Swallowing was a lot harder now. Trying to ignore how dry his mouth was, Bendy eased his grip off the lever and turned. Peeking down the hall, his face fell.

He didn’t have to enter the room to see Boris himself wasn’t much different. He wasn’t moving. His chest- his chest was- still… open…

Oh there was that nausea again. But he had to get closer to see if there was anything he could do…

Not even the runt bothered him this time as he approached the body. He nearly threw up when he spotted the spurts of ink shooting from his best friend’s ribcage, fleeing the room and down the hall.

It was a few minutes later when he came back to himself, finding himself crying. The runt was nearby, watching with obvious concern. Scowling, Bendy wiped his face with the back of his hand, not so much upset that he’d cried that this little pest had seen it.

“Buzz off,” he whispered.

He didn’t. What a shocker. Wiping his face again, Bendy straightened and pushed off the wall.

Okay, just turning it on didn’t work. Maybe examining the machine itself would help...?

He turned to go. The tiny devil sprang into action, pulling on him desperately. Bendy barely paid any attention until he realized there were inky blotches on the floor beneath them.

That were… too big… to be his…

Fear was a flood of icy water dumped over his head. His eyes snapped over to the brat, then trailed up the hallway.

The footprints were going right to the machine.

Were they big enough to be Joey’s? Wracking his brain as he started walking, he couldn’t come up with an answer. It had been too many years. Joey’s face was something he’d never forget, or how tall he was, but not his feet. Amazing, considering how often Bendy had stared at the floor when in his presence…

The second gut punch came swiftly, sending him reeling. The door was partly boarded up!?

Slowly, he approached.

As he tried to stand on tiptoe to peer through a gap in the boards, a hideous noise sounded from above. Bendy screamed and threw himself backwards as a loathsome shape loomed into view above him, reaching over the boards, wailing out an earpiercing shriek. Bendy landed flat on his back, scrambling to turn himself over and flee.

Halfway down the hallway he realized the runt was not with him.

Skidding to a stop, heart thumping, he turned to find him standing halfway between Bendy himself and the thing smashing its way through the boards. With a cry of terror, he ran back towards the little toon, shaking his shoulder. “KID WE GOTTA GO!”

No response. There were more of them now, horrifying inky husks rising from the flooding ink, but the kid’s gaze remained firmly on the biggest one.

That was heading right for them, something akin to a jaw opening and emitting horrific, guttural sounds.

“ssssss...oooouuuuuulllllllll… SSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUOUOUOUUUULLLL!”

Bendy scooped the runt up and ran for his life as the thing behind them moaned and groaned and chased after them, the dark, inky aura on the walls stealing every last tiny bit of light from the world, moving faster than them, overtaking them, no no _no-_

But there it was, there was the door, slightly ajar and there was _light_ leaking out of it and they were so close and Bendy reached out to grab the doorjamb and slam it open-

The ground was gone.

With no warning, not so much as a groan, the floor dropped away from under them.

Bendy screamed harder than he’d ever screamed in his life. By the time coherent thought caught up to him they’d already landed in the deep well of ink pooling at the bottom, Bendy coughing and choking as it flooded into his mouth, abruptly cutting off his screams.

Thankfully it also wasn’t very deep, and he kicked his way to the surface, breaking it moments after landing, hoisting the little devil he hadn’t let go of up.

Someplace to put him down. Someplace to put him down. Where-

There! There was a cabinet leaning up against a wall! Bendy kicked and swam over, depositing his tiny charge on the cabinet before hoisting himself up there, breathing heavily.

Slowly, he turned to look at the pipsqueak, who stared upwards from where they fell, trembling and almost as if in a trace.

 _“What,”_ Bendy gasped, the other devil jumping and looking to face him, “in blue blazes- was _that.”_

But only the sound of dripping answered him.

**Author's Note:**

> Man writing Bendy bitching is fun and I hope too much of my own Bendy characterization didn’t leak in. Pretty sure Bendy would be 1000x more terrified and morose if Buddy wasn’t driving him crazy the entire chapter.
> 
> Also I have no idea when Buddy shows up exactly so I’m just rolling with the idea that it happens after Bendy’s done sobbing his eyes out following [this scene](http://thelostmoongazer.tumblr.com/post/162015425532/yeah-it-is-also-dont-you-find-it-funny-how-when), probably when he’s picking up the inkwell at the art department.


End file.
